


An Hour at Lightsbridge, an Hour at Home

by zopponde



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zopponde/pseuds/zopponde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitting in is difficult at Lightsbridge, and for all her vast experience Tris still has to live with ignorant students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Hour at Lightsbridge, an Hour at Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keilexandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keilexandra/gifts).



A draft blew lightly through the open space of the library; Tris barely noticed it, though it did bring her the occasional whisper of a student complaining to a librarian. Each time, she pushed her glasses further up her nose and buried herself deeper into whichever text she was perusing, mentally chiding every complainer. It’s only just turned to Barley Moon, she thought. It’s not nearly as cold as it will be.

Eventually, she got a response. _Go easy on them_ , Sandry asked quietly in the back of Tris’s mind, setting aside an over-embroidered riding jacket in the uncountable distance to Summersea. _They probably can’t summon heat from the earth’s movements if they get cold._

Tris pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose again, a motion lost on her sister so far away. _Quit eavesdropping on me. Don’t you have some official Emelan governance nonsense to attend to?_

_Sadly_ , Sandry answered, _I’m afraid my good cousin Franzen has decided to take an interest in assisting his poor, helpless little cousin. Every time I approach him he tells me to leave it to him and that he knows how to handle these things better than I do._

_He’s handling them terribly_ , chimed in Daja, washing over Tris with the scents of her Cheeseman Street home and the heat of the forge she must have been leaving.

Sandry responded wryly, _I don’t think I’ve used such harsh words, and I don’t intend to cause conflict by doing so._

Spoken like a true politician, Tris told her. _I don’t think I’ve met a single student here who could say anything that tidy, not even the ones—_

“Catherna?” someone said. Tris looked up from the book she was pretending to read, her expression cross as she responded to her pseudonym; a fellow student of hers stood across from the table, a too-friendly blond boy from Namorn named Larnik.

He smiled a crooked smile at her, and Tris scowled. “Can I help you with something?” she asked

“I didn’t see you at the lecture today,” he said. “I was wondering if I you would mind giving me the pleasure of a conversation?”

Tris could roll her eyes. She didn’t particularly want to spend her time with him, particularly since he didn’t seem quite this friendly to many of her other classmates, but she knew how suspicious people were of her reclusion. She gestured for Larnik to sit, though she didn’t set down her book. _Sorry to leave you so suddenly_ , she said to Sandry and Daja. _Something came up. We’ll talk later._

Before she could get their responses, Tris heard Larnik ask, “Was that a mage trance? It looked like a mage trance,” he added when Tris raised her eyebrows at him. “You didn’t seem to notice me approaching.”

Tris pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It wasn’t a mage trance,” she said sharply. “I was just thinking.”

Larnik seemed skeptical, but shrugged. “I didn’t see you at the lecture today,” he said, sounding genuinely concerned. Tris could roll her eyes but Larnik went on, “It was really interesting, and our teacher considered it quite mandatory. Did you forget? It’s easy to lose track of time here.”

“It was the one about war magic, wasn’t it?” Tris asked coolly. Larnik nodded, seeming eager to tell her about it. “I made a previous arrangement with the teacher. I’m doing independent research to supplement my existing knowledge to write an essay proving that I didn’t need to hear more about it.”

Looking surprised, Larnik nodded. He seemed unsure what to say; Tris picked her book back up, ready to wait for him to figure it out, when he said, “You sure read a lot of big books, don’t you?”

“I have been known to enjoy the occasional tome,” Tris said, looking coolly at Larnik over the top of her book.

Larnik looked nervous; Tris watched him try to lean on nonchalantly on the table while fidgeting with a button on the cuff of his shirt. “It’s why you know so much, isn’t it?” he asked. “About war magic and mage trances. It’s the only way someone so young could be so far ahead.”

Tris pursed her lips. “You’d be surprised,” she told him.

Her frustration must have come off in her voice: Larnik raised his eyebrows worriedly. “I don’t mean to upset you,” he said. “I’m just curious. I really do want to learn things while I’m here, and since you seem to know so much I thought I could ask you a little bit to try to learn more. Is that okay?”

With a deep grimace, Tris set down her book, closing it over a bookmark. “I’m very well-traveled,” she said. “I was near Summersea during the pirate attacks in 1035. I saw enough to know that I don’t want to hear a class full of students talk about it like they know how terrifying war magic can get because they read a book once.”

Larnik blinked. “The speaker mentioned the raid on Winding Circle,” he said slowly. Tris watched him sharply as Larnik continued, “It was pretty unusual. There was some weird interference—tornadoes and lightning from clear skies, thorny plants growing as tall as men in minutes. And nobody even thought it was magic. He’d never seen anything like it, in all his experiences.”

Tris shrugged as casually as she could. “I understand that the Living Circle temples are good places to go if you’re the sort of mage who could do that,” she told him. When he raised his eyebrows she said, “Ambient magic. I believe one of our teachers has mentioned it at least once? It is often undetected by academic mages.”

“Of course,” Larnik said. “Well, if your experiences with war magic are mostly the unnerving ambient kind, maybe—” He stopped cold at the look that Tris gave him.

“I lived in Winding Circle for some time,” she said hotly. “I saw plenty of ambient magic being used for plenty of purposes. The only thing unnerving about it is when it’s used to kill people.”

Larnik opened his mouth, but Tris had had enough; she knew her face was flushed, and as tight as her control on her powers had become, she knew that sparks weren’t far off. She pushed her chair back before Larnik could say a word and stood, telling him sharply, “I’m sorry, I just remembered that I didn’t mean to take an hour to explain this to you. I’ll see you in class.” Tris picked up her bag and walked briskly out of the library.

Trailing winds behind her, Tris knew that Larnik did not follow her. Still, she kept walking, not stopping until she arrived at her home, where she closed her door loud enough to cause herself to wince. Suddenly exhausted, she dropped her bag and crossed the room to collapse on her bed. Without thinking about it, Tris regulated her breathing, falling into a meditative pattern as she sank into her power, looking for something to soothe her nerves.

She found herself on the roof of the copy of Discipline cottage that Briar had made. It felt as real as ever, and she would have been content to stay there alone and watch the impressions of clouds.

But Tris was not alone.

Daja looked up at her from her conversation with Briar and waved. “What happened?” she asked as Tris made her way over the fragrant thatch to sit by her foster-siblings. “You left suddenly. Sandry started to worry.” From the serious look on Briar’s face, Sandry wasn’t the only one; Tris realized that in her rush she might not have closed off her emotional connection as thoroughly as she had her mental one.

“Lightsbridge happened,” Tris responded, arranging her skirts to sit down on the thatch. Rather than explain what happened, she shared her memory of the experience.

Briar responded in a string of profanity, crossing several language barriers in the process. Daja frowned severely, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “And here I was about to suggest we ask Sandry to join us,” Daja said. “She was looking forward to the next time we could all talk together, and now Briar’s foul language has made the air unfit for a lady of her standing.”

Tris shrugged, though she felt the tension in her shoulders lessen. “That could be nice, being all together.”

Daja stood and left, going to ask Sandry to join them. Briar kept on scowling, and asked, “How often does that happen? Is your bleeding credentials really worth all that on the regular?”

“It’ll only be worse if I don’t get them,” Tris pointed out, leaning back on the roof to savor the lazy motions of the sky.

“Still, it’d sap the patience of the oldest tree. I don’t know how you do it, Coppercurls,” said Briar. “Putting up with such stupid bleaters all the time.”

With a contented sigh, Tris answered, “It helps that I’m never really that far from home.”

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I know, Tris's Lightsbridge pseudonym hasn't been revealed; given the amount of time I spent making one up (and then barely using it) I feel it necessary to say that the pseudonym I made up is Catherna Larsind, an anagram of Trisana Chandler.
> 
> I hope you were able to enjoy this. Happy holidays!


End file.
